Price wouldn't give a timetable for when the first game would roll out of the North Carolina Studio, or what that first game might be.

"One of the reasons we're close-lipped is because we don't want to mislead anybody," explained Price. "We don't try to make big promises or big statements without being able to back them up and we want to be absolutely sure our team is up, operational and going before we announce what project we're working on."

Price said the Burbank studio has several teams working on various projects and most of them haven't been announced yet. He was also mum on what was next for the best-selling Ratchet & Clank franchise.

"One of the things that we've done over the years is that we're always working on something ahead of time, so that when a game wraps up we're always ready to go into production on another game," added Price. "We always have a couple of projects in pre-production. We look pretty far ahead to the future of what we want to do over the next four years, so we plan out pretty carefully what games are going to be released each year."

Insomniac is the latest game studio to open up shop in the Research Triangle. Electronic Arts opened a studio in Morrisville last year to develop the PlayStation 2 version of the just-released NASCAR 09 game. Independent studio Epic Games, creator of this fall's Gears of War 2, and Ubisoft-owned Red Storm Entertainment have their headquarters in Cary and Morrisville, respectively. In addition, German game publisher cdv Software Entertainment has its marketing arm in Cary. Funcom has its QA support office in Durham. Serious game maker Virtual Heroes has its studio in Durham. And game makers Destineer Studios, Shrapnel Games and Icarus Studios are all in the Research Triangle area.

"We looked at a lot of different locations, but when it came down to it, the Raleigh Durham area had a great combination of talent with all of the schools there, great quality of life and great cost of living," said Dezern, who added that Insomniac will begin contacting North Carolina universities in search of talent for the new studio.

Since opening its doors in 1994, Insomniac Games has sold over 28.5 million games. The studio has remained independent and has focused on its Resistance and Ratchet & Clank franchises in recent years.